“You can’t even see my face.” Sally snorted.
“Most people think it takes more muscles to frown than to smile,” Jewel piped in. “But that’s not actually true. There are forty-three muscles in the face, and most are controlled by the seventh cranial nerve. But since everyone has a different facial structure, many of us use different combinations of muscles to smile or frown. So it could take more muscles to smile than frown, depending upon the person. How many muscles is she using, Rachel?”
Kara blinked as she looked at the phone and then at Jewel. “Or as us non-geniuses with normal synapsis would say, does she look concerned or chill?”
“Chill?” Rachel sounded very much like she was talking to children instead of grown women. “She’s not shivering if that’s what you mean”
“Y’all are seriously making my brain hurt, and I have Jen as a best friend and a genius for a son, so that’s saying something.” Sally huffed. “My look was because I was considering the fact that our men will not like us invading each other’s minds. I’m not terribly keen on the idea myself. I’ve had someone invade my mind when they weren’t welcome. You guys would be welcome, of course, but still. Let’s just be careful. And understand that our mates are a tad—”
“Freakishly proprietorial,” Jewel interjected.
“Dumb it down.” Kara sighed, though she smiled at Jewel.
“Possessive,” she offered. “They’re freakishly possessive.”
“Yes, that,” Sally said. “So, just prepare yourselves for a bit of snarling and a healthy dose of growling.”
“Nick and Dalton know we’re going to try to contact this chick mentally,” Kara said.
Rachel sighed. “Knowing something and then experiencing it are two very different things.”
Kara couldn’t disagree. “Okay, so we’ll be prepared for the males to be the psycho-stress-adding-element to the activity. Got it. Let’s do this before Rachel gets any older.”
Sally cackled through the phone, and Kara grinned as Jewel held up her hand for a high five.
“I’ll give you a pass on that one, Kara,” Rachel said. “But don’t come crying to me when your mate or one of the males in your pack dyes your baby blue.”
“Good grief, this is as bad as when Jacque, Jen, and I hang out. We go off on tangents and then can’t even remember what in the world we were going to talk about in the first place.”
“Healer-mind connections,” Jewel reminded. “How do we try?”
“Okay, so think about how we’re able to push our power into a person to heal them,” Sally explained. “We visualize what we want to do. Let’s do the same. Let’s visualize being in each other’s minds.”
“Maybe we should focus on one person,” Rachel suggested.
“Good idea.” Sally nodded. “Okay, I’ll put myself out there since this part was my idea. I’m going to imagine opening a door into my mind with the three of you coming inside of it.”
“So we should imagine knocking on the door?” Kara asked.
“Is the door a certain color?” Jewel added.
Kara lifted a brow at her friend.
Jewel shrugged. “What? I’m just clarifying how specific our thoughts need to be.”
Sally and Rachel both laughed on the other end of the phone.
“I don’t think it needs to be that detailed,” Sally said. “Just think about reaching out to me, my mind, and knocking to get in. That seems more polite than sort of showing up, if this is indeed possible.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if our mates knocked first?” Jewel muttered.
“They don’t even knock on actual doors,” Rachel replied. “They’re definitely not going to knock on metaphorical doors in our minds.”
“Your door would probably be like a stone rolled in front of a cave opening or something like that.” Sally teased. “You know … cause you’re so old you’ve been around since the Stone Age.”
Kara heard a sigh, and she could almost see Rachel rolling her eyes. “Hilarious, Sally. You just remember who keeps your son and has an enormous influence on him.”
“Low blow, Rach,” Sally grumbled. “Just promise me you won’t let Jen help in any caretaking role whatsoever. Anything else you do is reversible, but overexposure to Jen has permanent effects.”
